Mike Reilly finally has a job in the NFL after a long road that included going undrafted in April.  The former Central Washington quarterback signed as an undrafted free agent with the NFL Champion Steelers, but was cut before the regular season even began.  Since then he has unsuccesfully tried out for four different teams including the Seahawks, Bills, Saints, and Packers.

Thankfully, the Packers have had a change of heart and just signed Reilly to their practice squad after losing Brian Brohm to the struggling Bills.

Sounds like Reilly is already finding out the difficulties of being an NFL quarterback.  Check out this description of Reilly’s first day as a Packer from the Daily Record,

Reilly left on a 9 p.m. flight from the Tri-Cities to Seattle, had a 2 1/2 hour layover, flew from Seattle to Minneapolis-St. Paul, flew from there to Appleton, Wis., and made the 30-minute ride into Green Bay. He arrived just after 8:30 a.m. Thursday to meet with the team doctors, then got his gear and headed straight to practice.

Here’s an interesting video from the NCAA taking a look at the women who helped carry an opponent around the bases when she was injured after hitting the game-winning home run.

Today finally brings the day MFB and the rest of Husky basketball fans have anxiously waited for, and that is the return of Husky basketball.

Sure its in the form of an exhibition game against an inferior Central Washington, but any college basketball should commence celebration, especially in Seattlle where there is no longer any professional basketball.

The preview will be short because it is an exhibition and against a small school opponent like CWU, but here are some things to look for during the game…

1. How does Matthew Bryan-Amaning play as a starter? His play could be the difference between a deep tourney run and a season that ends sooner than it should, the Huskies need MBA to step up down in the paint and replace some of the post scoring lost in Jon Brockman’s departure.
2. How does Abdul Gaddy handle playing off the bench? Today delivered the somewhat surprising news that Gaddy would start on the bench, something few projected although Romar has said all along that Gaddy and Overton were battling for the final spot. He says Gaddy, Overton, and Isaiah Thomas should be considered three starters, but it will be the first time in a long time that Gaddy has not started for a team, should be interesting to see how he reacts.
3. How will Tyreese Breshers play in his first game back in over a year? Breshers is going to have to step up this season and help in the replacement of Brockman. His style of play is very similar to Brockman’s so maybe he will excel, but we will no know till we see him on the court.
4. Will free throws be an issue? This was the problem that plagued the team two years ago and then was fixed for the most part last season. But for a team as highly regarded as Washington, they must maintain their free throw success to build towards a deep tournament run. Last season they fixed it by getting to the line often and converting, but this season sees the departure of the best free throw shooter on the team last season, Justin Dentmon. At the end of games someone will have to step up and be that guy to take those crucial free throws at the end of games.
5. How will Scott Suggs play? There may not be a more intriguing story line to follow this season than the development of Suggs. He came in last year as the highest ranked incoming recruit, but saw the least amount of time out of the entire group of freshman who were eligible to play (Breshers obviously redshirted). Suggs admitted that he though of transfer at one point, but has come in this year greatly improved according to coaches and teammates. Tonight could be the preview of him writing a new chapter in his Husky career.

Just to touch on the Gaddy/Overton situation a bit more; it really should not be a big deal in the end Husky fans. It was known from the beginning that the three guards would play a huge amount of minutes, so starting really is not that big of an issue when all three will receive such heavy minutes. But I must admit, I like the idea of having Overton come off the bench and be the energy to help turn around games. There has been no one else on the internet that has praised Gaddy the way I have over the off-season, so this was something I was not necessarily anticipating. But in the end it should just be small potatoes.

A few years ago my wife and I took a Napa Valley “wine tour”. It was terrific: We got to see a beautiful part of the USA up close and personal and meet some very nice people. We tend to prefer smaller, family-owned “boutique”-style wineries, anyway, and the proprietors of such businesses are an interesting group. Winemakers are fun–often “entrepreneurial” but still wildly unconventional.

And of course, we got to sample some outstanding wines.

Imagine our surprise, then, when one of the vintners chided us for our ignorance of the wines in our own backyard! When he discovered that we live in the Wenatchee Valley in north-central Washington State, he said, “Some of the best wine in the world is coming out your valley right now.”

When we returned home, it didn’t take us long to take a wine tour of our home town. What we discovered was shockingly wonderful! Within 40 minutes of our residence we found more than a dozen top-notch wineries, all of which produce what are now our very favorites wines. With apologies to our friends in Napa Valley: I love Washington wine!

The eastern half of Washington State is sheltered from the drizzly northern Pacific weather fronts by the rugged Cascade mountain range. Therefore, unlike the wet and mild weather of Seattle and the Puget Sound, our half of the state has a dry, continental climate… much like northern California. It is actually somewhat warmer in the summer, and due to our more northern latitude, substantially colder in winter.

It is the winter cold that caused most horticulturalists to believe that Washington was unsuited for wine grapes. A crisis in the apple industry–the Alar scare of the late 80’s and early 90’s–precipitated a search for other cash crops. Many Washington orchardists experimented with small plots of wine grapes and discovered that the new crops did amazingly well. Much to the surprise of the naysayers, Washington grapes–and the wine they produce–are superb.

Mike Scott, co-owner of Martin-Scott Winery in East Wenatchee, WA, believes that the cold winters are actually one of the important keys to the high quality wine produced in north-central Washington. It produces a “survival of the fittest” scenario: “They come close to death every winter–they’re stressed… The plants that survive produce a better vintage.”

The rest of the wine world seems to agree: The Washington wine industry is experiencing literally explosive growth. The amount of land devoted to wine grapes has more than tripled in the last decade, and even though winemaking is still in its infancy here, this area is now the nation’s second largest wine producer.

As I mentioned at the start, my wife and I have a preference for smaller, family-owned wineries. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, smaller wineries seem to have a great consistency within a given vintage. The characteristics of the grapes used are usually very even since fewer are needed. In my opinion, the massive production runs of the major commercial wineries tends to introduce some degree of inconsistency.

The second reason we enjoy smaller wineries is that when we visit we often get to talk with the owners and even the winemakers themselves. In fact, at the Icicle Ridge Winery, you get to do wine tastings right in the kitchen of the owners’ stunningly beautiful log home! Precisely because Washington’s wine industry is so young, the wineries are still a very personal experience: There is a very old-world craftsmanship about it that I respect and admire.

I do enjoy the wines of other regions, but it has been a joy to discover that there’s no place like home. If you ever visit north-central Washington and taste our wine, I think you’ll love Washington wine, too!